| Director | M. Night Shyamalan |
|---|---|
| Budget | $72 million |
| Box office | $408.2 million |
Former Episcopal priest Graham Hess lives on a rural farm in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, with his asthmatic preteen son, Morgan, and young daughter, Bo, who has a fixation on contaminated water. Graham's younger brother Merrill, a failed minor league baseball player, has been helping the family since Graham's wife Colleen died in a traffic collision six months earlier. Graham abandoned the church in the aftermath of the incident.
A large crop circle appears in the Hesses' cornfield, which they initially attribute to vandals; however, other similar crop circles begin appearing globally. When lights from unseen objects begin appearing over more and more of Earth's cities, speculation of an alien invasion grows worldwide, including at the Hesses' farm. Morgan believes he hears alien noises on Bo's old baby monitor, while Merrill becomes convinced after seeing footage from Brazil of an unidentified humanoid creature. On successive nights, Graham sees an intruder standing on the roof of his home and in the cornfield, yet remains adamant there is a reasonable explanation for all events.
Graham receives a phone call from veterinarian Ray Reddy, the man responsible for his wife's death, and drives to his house. Expressing remorse for Colleen's death, Reddy tells Graham of a creature he has locked in his pantry and, believing they avoid water, he leaves for the lake. Graham enters the house and attempts to see under the pantry door, when a clawed hand swipes at him and he severs the creature's fingers in a panic. Having seen this, Graham decides to protect his house by boarding up the windows and doors. That night, an intruder breaks in, and the family takes refuge in the basement, where Morgan has an asthma attack, but despite leaving his medication upstairs, Morgan survives the night.
The next morning, when they hear radio reports that all the phenomena in the world's skies have stopped, the family emerges from the basement. They find the creature from Reddy's house in their living room; Graham recalls Colleen's dying words, "swing away", prompting Merrill to swing at the creature with his baseball bat, knocking the creature into glasses of water left out by Bo, which weakens it. The creature sprays Morgan with a mysterious gas, rendering him unconscious; Graham rescues his son and administers Morgan's medication, realizing that his son's constricted lungs prevented him from inhaling the toxins, an act that Graham attributes to the intervention of a higher power. By winter, the Hess family has recovered from the ordeal, and Graham returns to the church.